


It's Hard on These Streets

by MayoMayo



Series: Ghettotale [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-03 17:44:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8723248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayoMayo/pseuds/MayoMayo
Summary: It will have been ten years since the monsters surfaced in Pennsylvania.Nobody wanted them except the six-year-old that led them out of the Underground.Sadly, their total abandonment of the Underground pulled all the magical structural integrity of the Core and led to the entire Underground being flooded with lava. They were here to stay.Thanks to being totally isolated from the rest of the world, the Underground had no GDP and forced the newly surfaced monsters to live in the poorer neighborhoods of America. All but Frisk, Toriel, Asgore, and Muffet were relegated to poverty and in turn became a large American minority.The struggle for jobs and money changes some of our favorite characters irreparably, and thus leads to some inevitable tension with their family and friends.This won't be a happy story. The characters probably won't find human lovers or even some semblance of solace from racism in general.It will, however, be a hell of a ride.





	1. Prelude

The woman walked home, her muscled physique unusually despondent and limp. 

 

This was not a good day.

 

As she sulked through her dimly-lit neighborhood, a few uncomfortable late-night travelers edged out of her path in undeserved discomfort. Her neighbors, primarily darker of skin, showed no such fear. They were just as down on their luck as she.

 

She passed the familiar homeless men and their dogs in the warm yellow-white of street lamps, not sparing so much as a glance their way. The route was ingrained deeply in her mind, her golden eyes seldom meandering from the glittering mica flakes of the sidewalk. 

 

It had been almost three years since her last sight of real stars. She took the sparkling mineral immersed in the ground as a suitable substitute.

 

She rounded the corner, closing the last stretch of concrete between her and her brown brick, rusting iron, and dun-glass building. A familiar junkie silently twitched in a corner as she breathed in the relief of home sweet home. It was at least slightly good to be back, as the streets were quiet and the air fresh on this honey-clear November night. 

 

The uncomfortable, unceremonious ride in the rickety elevator had erased all pleasant memories of the ones back underground. She had never feared for her own life then, but now her tight grip on the wooden railings within told a different story. She huffed a “good riddance” under her breath as the doors opened and the wooden box shuddered to a halt. 

 

She padded down the fading carpet in the hallway to her heavy apartment door. Taking care to be extremely quiet, so as not to disturb her roommates or neighbors, she cautiously opened her apartment door and gritted her teeth at the creaking hinges. 

 

The door now closed. It was totally black in her small dwelling, save for a rivulet of amber streetlight that threw itself languidly over the mottled cream sheets draped across her pullout couch.

 

Peeling off her outer clothes and shoes, she sat on the bed, the topaz glow of outside almost sewn onto her ocean-teal skin. The woman was bare-breasted as she longingly faced the window. 

 

As her senses slipped away into the void, she engorged herself on the white wine of silence that permeated her home, thought of the past, and felt alone.


	2. In Which the True Hero is a Shit Liar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, my dudes!
> 
> Less than a week after Chapter 1!
> 
> I just watched the False Alarm music video (by the Weeknd) and I may or may not give Sans some flashbacks like that.

A skeleton peeked out from behind his yellowing bedroom door, and scanned the room in front of him. 

 

His roommate lay tangled in her bedsheets, sprawled over every possible corner of her mattress. She was still asleep.

 

He crept out of his room, working his way over the shag carpet to the aging kitchen, and stopped before he had to mask the unavoidable clicking of his feet on the tile. He grabbed a pair of threadbare pink slippers and continued.

 

Throwing open the fridge led to a cacophonous clanking of glass bottles and jars, causing the woman on the couch to stir and the skeleton to flinch. He much more slowly drew a bottle of some unlabeled copper liquid from the refrigerator door, the white plastic streaks of the old label covered by a post-it reading “ketchup” in some bubble-lettered hand. It was not ketchup. 

 

He took a long sip from the bottle, the libation somehow vanishing instead of logically dripping onto the floor. He checked the clock. It was not yet ten in the morning.

 

The blue woman on the couch turned over, eying the skeleton’s back with a single piercing yellow eye.

 

“Morning.”

 

“heya.”

 

The skeleton stared blankly at the clock again, taking another sip from the plastic bottle. 

 

“it's friday.”

 

“Mhmm.”

 

“it's a school day.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“you’re a teacher, undyne.”

 

“I don't teach on Friday.”

 

“don't you have meetin’s and stuff? normally you're gone when I get up.”

 

“Eh. You get up late.”

 

“you weren't home when i got back last night. and you don't seem to have any bitches with you. or liquor, for that matter.”

 

“It’s a school night, Sans. I teach children. Why would I go home and drink? Shit ain’t legal.”

 

“just sayin’. besides, you do kinda do that a lot.”

 

“You got a Hennessy in your hand right now. I ain’t taking shit about my consumption from a man who drinks hard liquor before noon.” He lazily opened the fridge and stashed away the ‘ketchup.’

 

“i don’t have to show up until, like, nine tonight. hope it kicks in by then.” He chuckled, though nobody else found it funny.

 

“Sans. Get off my dick. I got home late yesterday and I don't go in Fridays. At least-” Her breath hitched. “At least I have somewhere to go in the morning. Unlike your lazy ass.”

 

“huh. well. you do you.” He began a drawn-out shuffle to the bathroom.

 

“Wait. Sans.” He turned around. “You got any other jobs you can pick up?”

 

“not really.”

 

“You sure?”

 

“yes.” He took another step, then stopped. “you lookin’ to tell me something?”

 

Undyne sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

 

“No.”

 

Sans shrugged in a silent “whatever.”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“that’s progress.”

 

Undyne took a long breath. She gathered her thoughts before squarely stating “I got laid off yesterday.”

 

He stopped in his tracks and looked intently at a crack in the plaster. “shit.”

 

“Is that- that all?”

 

“well, i want to know exactly what the fuck you did to get fired, but you seem pretty shaken, so i’ll ask again later. go look for another.”

 

“I tried asking Muffet last night.”

 

Sans gritted his teeth. “we don't need her kind of charity. don't talk to her.” He silently played through about four hours worth of memory in his head. He winced.

 

Undyne was taken aback. “You can't tell me how to pay OUR rent. She said she had a position in mind.”

 

His right eye sparked with rage. “don’t speak to that bloodsuckin’ whore. we keep our money legal in this house.”

 

Undyne was unshaken, and saucily retorted “Go take a shower or something. Calm down.” Sans closed his eye sockets and unclenched his jaw.

 

“fine. do whatever you want. but if paps and i lose this apartment because of some shit you pull with her, i will never forgive you.” Undyne silently mocked his apparently undeserved anger. “don’t test me. you’ve seen what i can do.”

 

He opened the flaking bathroom door and stepped inside.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------

 

A teenager, roughly 16 or 17 years old, slouched facing a thickly painted white cinder block wall in their school’s office. Their nose was reddened by another student’s punch, and their face was shriveled into an almost comical frown.

 

Their dean had given up trying to communicate with them, as the teen was mute and the administrator did not comprehend ASL.

 

The kid was very attractive. Caramel complexion speckled with dark chocolate freckles and neck-length hair to match, irises as black as espresso, and a decadent body that was oddly flat-chested. A sliver of muscle rippled with their every move, and the jeans, fishnets, and tiny graphic tee they had chosen to wear flaunted every curve imaginable. 

 

Today, another kid had gotten a bit touchy with them, and they had vigorously resisted the unwelcome groping. This escalated into a fight in a hallway and the eventual nose punch that had landed them in this silent detention.

 

It came as a shock to the lack of noise that the door was softly opened, and a motherly voice called out with a “I am dearly sorry I am so late. I had to spend quite a while looking for parking.”

 

The woman now in the room was imposingly tall, yet still warm and maternal. She was much more conservative in her outfit than her younger companion, but was also generously curvy in her purple dress and tight white designer sweater. The dean visibly struggled to keep his thoughts professional and appropriate before the other two personalities in the room.

 

The woman sat down, brushing her floppy white ears over her shoulders in much the same way as a human would do with hair.  
“So,” she said. “Care to tell me what happened?”

 

The dean stared at the student, expecting some kind of hasty apology for getting into a fight or a half-baked lie about the nose bleed. He was treated, however, to neither. The student simply sat up and faintly grimaced in his direction.

 

The dean then noticed the mother’s eminent gaze, and began to describe what they had gathered of the morning’s conflict.

 

“Well, uh, Ms. Dreemur, is it?” The woman nodded. “Another student tried to… inappropriately touch your child in the hallway. They, of course, retaliated. I have been told that Frisk refused any physical fighting, but they do seem to get in fistfights very often from what I have been told.”

 

This set Frisk off. They immediately turned to their mother and started signing almost unintelligibly quickly, trying to explain that they didn't ask for this and it wasn't their fault. 

 

“Normally we suspend students for this kind of violent behavior, but Frisk has, to date, never thrown a punch. Not from what I can tell, anyway.” Frisk looked ready to explode at this point, but held back their bubbling rage when their mother placed a hand on their shoulder.

 

“I can understand your worry about the safety of the other pupils at this school, but can you tell me any occasions in which Frisk started a fight?” She seemed to be restraining similar levels of agitation to her child.

 

“Not that I can think of, but I have been informed of behavior that might… possibly… Warrant the actions performed towards them.”

 

The mother’s nostrils flared. “What kind of behavior, precisely?”

 

“Well, uh… how can I put this… Frisk is rather… Flirtatious.”

 

The woman was puzzled. “Flirting? Frisk does that quite often at home. It is kind of a running joke among our friends and family, but I see no reason why they would be harassed for it in school.”

 

“Maybe their classmates don't take it as a joke. They're probably used to people flirting with them for real. Although I do think stopping it altogether would be an effective way to curb the fighting.”

 

Frisk was taken aback. It was, amusingly enough, one of their fondest childhood memories to have flirted with basically everything in the Underground. Besides, it wasn't their fault that they were getting sexually harassed. Asking to put a stop to the flirting seemed like the least work on the part of the dean. 

 

All they signed at their mother was Tori- before she cut them off with her understanding gaze. “Sir, is it really Frisk’s fault? I would assume that even if Frisk cut out all the flirting, that would have little bearing on the behavior of other students.”

 

The dean thought about it for a second. “Ma'am, you would be correct in thinking that, but there is one thing you aren't considering.”

 

“And that is?”

 

“All the other families I’ve talked to generally support each other. They all unanimously agree that Frisk is at fault here. Not necessarily because they think that their kid is, say, a golden child. But they all have one thing in common.” He cleared his throat. “Are you aware that you are currently the only monster parent at this school?”

 

Toriel was taken strongly aback. “You're telling me that Frisk is being assaulted because of racism?”

 

The dean saw the borderline hatred in Toriel’s eyes. “I understand we live in a very liberal city, Ms. Dreemurr, but you cannot ignore that there is some undeserved animosity towards your child anyway. The best possible way for Frisk to avoid these incidents is to, effectively, stop doing anything at all.”

 

Frisk was now shocked. It made some sense, but they hadn’t dealt with anything that could be considered violent racism since their adoption. Frisk looked at their mother, and she seemed to be taking it even more seriously. Frisk had only seen that look once before, and had thought it was for the last time.

 

Toriel narrowed her eyes. “Sir?” she growled.

 

“Yes, Ms. Dreemurr?”

 

“I think Frisk and I need to go.” She grabbed Frisk by the arm and led them out of the room.

 

Approximately fifteen minutes later, Toriel had begun to cool down. Frisk simply looked out the window at the stout buildings of Astoria, and thought of the Underground and their friends that they hadn’t seen in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teenage Frisk has a sweet ass.


	3. Rich White Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUCKIN' HELL
> 
> I HAD TWO SHOWS AND A SHOWCASE AND FINALS
> 
> I WAS MAD BUSY
> 
> HERE'S A CHAPTER
> 
> SHIT

A human woman, dressed impeccably, knocked on an opaque white door marked only with a frosted glass window.

“Muffet, you in there?”

Inside, a purple-skinned monster girl put down her notebook and swiveled towards the door. “Come on in, Jenny!” she cheerily spoke.

The human woman opened the door and hiked her bag up over her shoulder. She took a moment to adjust to the sunlight streaming in through the wall-to-wall windows of Muffet’s office. “Oof. Some of the guys in management thought it would be a good idea to set up a partnership with a company in Germany. Remind me not to listen to a translator ever again.” She covered her mouth with one hand as she struggled to hold back laughter at her own joke. Muffet, flustered at humor she didn’t find funny but blushing at the surprisingly adorable display by her elder coworker, forced a chuckle. “Anyway, you want to go grab lunch? A new noodle place just opened a few blocks away.”

“Sure. Just let me grab my jacket and let’s go.” Muffet stood up, and Jenny peppily left the office. The maroon-clad spider woman picked up her equally crimson leather purse, and strode over to the coat rack by the windows. She stared out the huge windows at the much shadier red-brick buildings across the highway, and slipped three of her arms though her wine-colored toggle coat.

Jenny was waiting at the front desk as Muffet awkwardly worked her way to the door, still pushing glossy black buttons through the holes in her fur-lined coat. “Donovan,” she barked at the secretary. “We're going out to grab some lunch. If anyone asks for me give them a business card and tell them I called in sick today.”

“Same for me, Donovan,” chimed Jenny significantly more smoothly. The squirrelly man serving as their secretary quickly scribbled something down on a notepad while Muffet held the door open for her companion.

The duo silently strutted down the hallway out of their office and quietly stood for a moment as a gleaming stainless steel elevator opened before them.

\---------------------------------------------

Meanwhile, a tall and rather giddy skeleton wildly grinned as he flipped a mass of noodles, vegetables, beef, and sauces over an open flame. The few customers sitting by the counter, which included two teenagers hanging out and an exhausted woman with a small child, stared in awe at the chef’s mastery of his art. The rest of the establishment was wary of this monolithically-built monster, but every now and again some hipster or day trader or parent fresh from the park would gander at the wild cook. 

He snatched a paper bowl from a nearby pile and scraped the steaming food into it with a miniature spatula, then quickly embedded the tool in the food itself. “NUMBER NINE?!” he shouted into the buzzing dining room.

One of the teenagers stood and bumbled his way to the stove and chef, brandishing a ticket for offer to the gentle giant making his lunch. “AH!” barked the skeleton. “THE ORDER FOR THE LOVELY COUPLE!”

The teen buried his face in his sweater, trying to hide the raging blush on his face. His female partner giggled with a similar flush of pink on her face, and the adults in the humming eatery smiled at the scene unfolding. The cook took this in, winked at the girl, and threw back his skull in a hearty “NYEH HEH HEH!”

“WOULD YOU LIKE AN EXTRA UTENSIL WITH THAT, YOUNG CUSTOMER?” he playfully prodded at the boy. The embarrassed patron nodded. The chef mouthed a GOOD LUCK! at the teen as he returned to his seat.

The culinary master then proceeded to take a slip of paper on which was written the next order, and rapidly toss the numerous ingredients in his still-blazing wok.

Muffet and Jenny opened the door just then, and the chef, turning to greet the guests, slightly jumped at the sight of the spider woman.

“GOOD AFTERNOON, MISS MUFFET!” he waveringly shouted.

She giggled in response. “Good afternoon, Papyrus!”

As she and Jenny worked their way to a table in the corner, Jenny curiously glanced at the huge skeleton behind his pots and pans. “You know him?” she inquired.

“Yeah, actually. His brother and I have known each other for quite a while.” She grimaced a little bit at the violent memories.

“He seemed kinda… scared of you.” Jenny quickly flushed in embarrassment. “Not to be rude or anything. I mean.”

Muffet giggled again, but stopped when she saw her senior turning bright red. Holy fuck, was she cute when she was flustered.

Shit. No. Muffet buried the romantic urges that surfaced towards her friend. “Jenny, it’s cool. I have that effect on people.” Jenny in turn let out a chuckle. “Anyway, what do you want to order?”

The pair settled for two Number 7s with udon noodles, and Muffet volunteered to collect their dishes for them after some bickering. “I have six arms, remember?” she poked at Jenny. 

Carrying the bowls back from Papyrus proved mildly awkward, as Papyrus seemed to smile a bit too wide and tighten up as Muffet approached him. He was still scared of her. She couldn't have him bring back the past in front of a coworker, so she kept her interaction with him brisk and polite. Papyrus even sweat with relief as Muffet sat down with her food and he returned to his cooking.

Jenny seemed determined to flirt with Muffet, as she carried herself so coyly and ate borderline seductively, slowly sucking back her noodles and yet barely smudging her lipstick. Muffet clenched her teeth at times, trying her best to hold back the arousal at her married, conservative business partner. She silently gasped for air at the completion of their meal, welcoming the return to late afternoon work as a time to return to her thoughts and her business plan. 

She was hopelessly in love with a business mom ten years older than herself. She knew this wouldn't end well. 

After a walk back to the office filled with uppity chatter, Muffet was surprised to find another monster waiting at the front desk in a gradually heating argument with Donovan.

“Undyne?” she probed, incredulously.

The tall and rather displaced monster sighed with relief at seeing Muffet. “Finally. The asshole you hired as a secretary kept telling me to leave a message for you.”

Muffet shook her head in amused disappointment. “Are you here about that offer I made you a few days ago?”

“Yeah. You didn’t tell me where to reach you, so I came to your office.” She thumped on her chest with a closed fist. “I follow through on that shit.”

Muffet slipped her a business card. “Right now I gotta get back to work, but shoot me an email or something. We can talk later.”

“Sounds good.” Undyne tossed the hood of her sweatshirt over her head. “Talk later.”

Jenny was taken aback at the relative lack of manners Undyne had shown in a famous executive office. “Is she looking for a job?”

Muffet laughed. “Kinda. I’m setting her up with some people I know from college.”

Jenny shrugged and wandered back to her office. Muffet, meanwhile, leaned up against Donovan’s desk, and thought for a split second.

\---------------------------------------------

As a nervous, rat-like man in a too-big, pointy suit stood at the entrance to a bank vault flanked by two muscled men in tuxedos. Many more frail bank security guards stood around the building, several barricading the entrance. Hundreds of reporters stood on the other side of the bank’s glass doors.

A few shadowy figures, ranging wildly in height, width, and limb number, stood overlooking the tiny man in the bank in the silhouette of the second-floor columns. Two of them nodded at each other, and the second one pressed a candy-like red button. A thundering crack echoed through the bank, and one side of the balcony collapsed on about ten security guards. The rest grabbed hold of their pistols, and the skinny man in the suit hid behind a guard. The shadows stepped forth onto the front of the floor and several of them drew machine guns, shooting down the rest of the guards. The rich man fell to his knees, but didn’t bleed.

The invaders leapt to the ground, one of them grabbing the victim by his wrists and wrapping them in a cord tie. Two others drew high-tech SMGs and finished off the rest of the guards. The police were quick to rush the building, and shot a tall criminal. His body crumbled into dust on the ground.

The shortest grabbed the small man’s wrists and dragged him along while firing his pistol at the incoming cops. He fled with the rest of the group into a back room, congregating by the exit. A more effeminate kidnapper barked angrily into a satellite phone as two muscular male figures shot into the hallway. One threw a grenade that knocked down the concrete ceiling.

The sound of metal crumpling and a car honking drew them outside. The short kidnapper dragged the small man across concrete, throwing him into the back of a heavily reinforced van. The rest jumped in, and the short one slipped while climbing onto the back of the truck. He slammed his head hard on the bumper, and his last memory before a blackout was a pair of hands dragging him into the truck as well.

\---------------------------------------------

Muffet looked pensive for another second, and then leaned in to whisper at Donovan. “Her roommate was the one who kidnapped Senator Pike. I have another errand in mind for her.” Donovan nodded. “Like what you saw?”

Donovan just sat back, sipped his coffee, and smiled his employee-of-the-month smile back at his boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be in Florence next week without my laptop, so don't expect a chapter then either.
> 
> Other than that, meet Paps! He works at a richer, whiter version of Walk to Wok! He's genuinely unchanged by the struggle! He is a cinnamon bun!
> 
> Muffet however...
> 
> Is the chief financial officer for a private space association. And a gang leader.
> 
> Fun for the whole family.
> 
> *More Notes:  
> I'm going to take a hiatus for a bit. You guys can expect a chapter before the month ends, but I'm also working on writing some music for another AU and a canon for the SCP Foundation.


	4. Notification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, just a little update.
> 
> I have recently become swamped with work and shit including a musical, a NASA internship, several in-school projects, and a job.
> 
> This is to say, It's Hard On These Streets could very well be abandoned.
> 
> However, this is not to say I'm giving up Undertale. I am actually working on an even larger-scale project that will end up as a series of Unitale fights, a playlist, and some fanfic, and it is basically a collaborative AU between me and one other person. We are calling it Under:Reborn.
> 
> So keep checking my account for updates, and toodles!

Read the summary fam. You need to.


End file.
